Weight Loss/ Health Help

gangly77

Hi,

I am currently 6’2, 245 lb 25 years old male,

I recently bought a stationary exercise bike, which I have been using for about 2 weeks now, My current goal is at 90 minutes a day which comes out to ~1000 Calories burned according to the machines display.

My question is, Does this sound like a safe goal to follow in order to lose 1-2 lbs per week? Or am I over-exercising?

according to the MyFitnessPal app, which I log my food and exercise every day, I have been keeping my caloric intake numbers in the green every week fluctuating up and down never leaving my calorie goal in the negative range.

Should I keep up with this routine or should I try cut down my exercise bike time? I just want to know If I am on the right track or If I need to change it up

AnnPT77

If your exercise is enjoyable for you, doesn't leave you over-tired, fits well into your life with good overall life balance**, and you can visualize continuing that amount of exercise permanently (or close), that's a good amount of exercise. If "no" to any of those, I'd reconsider.

** By "good overall life balance", I mean still having enough time and energy for all the other things important to your life and goals, such as family, job, social life, any non-exercise hobbies or pursuits that are important to you, etc.

Here's my bias: I looked at weight loss as an oportunity to learn and practice what I needed to know in order to stay at a healthy weight long-term (permanently, if possible). That meant I wasn't willing to do anything that I couldn't imagine myself doing long term, in order to lose weight, except for a sensibly moderate calorie deficit. Once I got to goal weight, I could just gradually add back calories until my weight stabilized, and keep going with what had become well-grooved-in, convenient, happy habits. (Since I'm now in year 4+ of maintaining, after several previous decades of obesity, I think that was a good strategy . . . for me. You would need to consider whether that would be good for you, or not.)

Eating at your calorie goal is the right thing to do (a little above, a little below, sometimes one of those, sometimes the other - still fine). The only caveat is that if you find yourself losing weight at an unhealthfully fast rate (over a multi-week time, on average), then you should eat more in order to slow down to a healthy loss rate. If you set up your MFP activity correctly (based on non-exercise activity alone), and are logging and eating back exercise calories, that's the right way to do it.

I'm much smaller and older than you, but would observe that 1000 calories for 90 minutes seems on the high side as an estimate (I'm unsure whether you're already quite fit, which would affect that assessment quite a lot), but being so different from you, I'm not certain. You can test that out for a few weeks, and see how your loss rate behaves, then you'll know.

Many of us think strength training is a good thing, during weight loss especially. Are you doing any strength training? I know many of us don't have gym access or home equipment right now, but there are also good bodyweight programs. Some of them (despite the title) are in this thread:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10332083/which-lifting-program-is-the-best-for-you/p1

Best wishes!

Mithridites

If I understand correctly you eat back all of your exercise calories. Take those numbers with a grain of salt until your weight-loss trend proves them to be true. Many pieces of cardio equipment give inaccurate calorie burn readouts, and so do many activity trackers, the ones without a chest hr strap especially. So while it’s possible to be Quite accurate with a food scale, weighing your food intake down to a gram for logging purposes, the ‘calories out’ portion can be a little harder to quantify.

gangly77

Thank you! Thats very insightful and exactly what I hoped to hear as well!

Regarding if I do strength training as well, What I had in mind was just focusing on getting to my target weight (180-185 lbs) through Cardio on my stationary bike, Then once I get closer to that target weight I plan on investing in some weights or gym time to work more on strength training. (If you advise that I try to mix both together while I am focusing on losing weight/ burning fat through cardio that would be great to know because this is the first time in my life my outdoor activities have been cut down leading me to several extra pounds of fat in the last couple years.)

Also My bike does have 2 resistance bands that I can use while on it but I don’t think it was designed too well so I rarely use them, but that may change If I can figure out a way to incorporate them in my exercise.

P.S. I bike every morning which leaves me the entire rest of day for work, social activities, etc. etc.

AnnPT77

gangly77 wrote: »

Thank you! Thats very insightful and exactly what I hoped to hear as well!

Regarding if I do strength training as well, What I had in mind was just focusing on getting to my target weight (180-185 lbs) through Cardio on my stationary bike, Then once I get closer to that target weight I plan on investing in some weights or gym time to work more on strength training. (If you advise that I try to mix both together while I am focusing on losing weight/ burning fat through cardio that would be great to know because this is the first time in my life my outdoor activities have been cut down leading me to several extra pounds of fat in the last couple years.)

Also My bike does have 2 resistance bands that I can use while on it but I don’t think it was designed too well so I rarely use them, but that may change If I can figure out a way to incorporate them in my exercise.

P.S. I bike every morning which leaves me the entire rest of day for work, social activities, etc. etc.

I'd suggest starting some kind of strength training. If you're new to it, the good bodyweight programs (see the thread I linked) are a place to start. Both cardio (like your biking) and strength training are beneficial, within the time available for exercise. I've seen many people here say "I wish I'd started strength training earlier/right away". I've never seen anyone say "I wish I'd waited".

If you include some strength work now, it will help you keep existing muscle, at least. Since muscle is slow to build, keeping it is a really efficient thing to do. At your age, and 100% more male than I am, you *might* even be able to gain a little muscle as a strength-training beginner, even while losing weight. Keeping what you have is a sufficient reason, though, and you can gain strength (by better recruiting/using current muscle fibers) and improve appearance without gaining actual muscle mass, so it's a win, I think, either way.

If I were you, I'd look at the bike as primarily a cardiovascular training tool (rather than trying to make it a pseudo-strength thing), and a way to eat a bit more while losing weight at a reasonable weight. That's good stuff, too.

I'd recommend a mix of bike (or other cardiovascular exercise) plus strength, fitting both into your "good life balance" time available, personally.

Wishing you great results!

gangly77

Mithridites wrote: »

If I understand correctly you eat back all of your exercise calories. Take those numbers with a grain of salt until your weight-loss trend proves them to be true. Many pieces of cardio equipment give inaccurate calorie burn readouts, and so do many activity trackers, the ones without a chest hr strap especially. So while it’s possible to be Quite accurate with a food scale, weighing your food intake down to a gram for logging purposes, the ‘calories out’ portion can be a little harder to quantify.

Yeah I figured that so, So I always log my numbers as rough estimates, And plan to weigh in every 5 weeks. So if my weight is lower than my current by then, I will assume im on the right track and will stick to my exercise and dieting routine as it is

Dogmom1978

I subtract 20% off of every piece of cardio. If the machine says I burned 200 calories, I enter it as 160. All of my cardio (except my concept2) is commercial gym equipment that allows me to enter my actual weight, but I know that even those overestimate my actual calorie burn.

By doing it that way, I’m usually pleasantly surprised at the end of the week. My MFP goal is 1 lb a week, but some weeks I can hit 2 lbs and I know it’s because I’m burning more calories than I am accounting for, but I would rather be safe than sorry.

Personally, I find it easier to add in more food than I do to cut more or I wouldn’t be on a weight loss journey.

Best of luck! 🤗